


Flashback

by Section_42



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Series - Various Authors
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29124492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Section_42/pseuds/Section_42
Summary: Somewhere on the edges of the Yuuzhan Vong War, two of the Solo children and a couple of their friends are making a simple supply run for the Jedi base.When a hyperspace disruption throws their ship out of lightspeed, they detour to Bespin, and find the Imperial Star DestroyerChimaeraparked in orbit above Cloud City.And things go south from there...
Relationships: Anakin Solo/Tahiri Veila
Comments: 52
Kudos: 7





	1. Out Of The Maw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: _I should probably begin by conceding that this doesn't really fit into the New Jedi Order timeline... but that's sort of the point. Stick with the story, and I hope that this will make sense eventually. In case it needs to be made explicit, all the characters in this storyline are adults, but I think the situations and dialogue are mild enough that a T rating makes sense._
> 
> _If you don't know who Anakin, Tahiri and Jaina are, I'd recommend the_ Dark Tide _duology by Michael A. Stackpole and the_ Edge of Victory _novels by Greg Keyes._
> 
> _STAR WARS, of course, belongs to its copyright holders; this is just a critical and artistic commentary on the canon, themes, characters and locations._
> 
> _And remember - we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the sea of stars..._

**Star Wars: Flashback**

**Dramatis Personae**

Anakin Solo; Jedi Knight (male human from Corellia)  
Tahiri Veila; Jedi Apprentice (female human from Tatooine)  
Jaina Solo, X-wing Pilot (female human from Coruscant)  
Lowbacca; Jedi Knight (male Wookiee from Kashyyyk)  
Mitth'raw'nuruodo; Warlord of the Empire (male Chiss from Nirauan)

* * *

  
The sudden jolt threw Anakin and Tahiri out of the bunk, landing in a tangle of each other’s bodies, between the cold flat plane of the metal deck, and the awkward angles of the bulkheads. It took them a moment to work out that they were in the corner of the cramped cargo bay where they slept aboard the _Yavin Turtle_. For a moment longer, it wasn’t completely clear which way was up.

Even so, Anakin Solo found himself looking into his girlfriend’s eyes.  
  
“Ow,” she said, suppressing at least one rather more exotic reaction. In the darkness, she was always very cute when she frowned. “What just happened?”  
  
They were moving around each other, a dance to disentangle their limbs that was effortless, unselfconscious, completely shared.  
  
“Sounds like we got yanked from hyperspace,” he said, helping her to her bare feet. “Come on.”  
  
“Don’t we need clothes?” she asked, then shook her head, and followed him out of the hold, and down the corridor to the cockpit. “Of course not.”  
  
“Captain’s privilege,” he countered, grinning. “Captain’s girlfriend’s privilege, too.”

The cockpit was a chaos, multi-coloured and symphonic, with warning lights flashing on all the control panels, Fiver tweeting rapidly in alarm in the droid socket, and Jaina looking very tense in the pilot’s chair, as her fingers pushed keys and switches, and her hands pulled levers and punched bulkheads. She was asking stacatto questions into the microphone of her comm headset, almost-arguing with Lowie in the engine room. The Wookiee’s roars of answer were loud enough to be audible from the earphones.  
  
A glance through the encircling viewports pretty much confirmed that the old freighter had crashed unexpectedly back out of lightspeed. A scatter of stars in the darkness, bisected by the brighter trail of the Galaxy, had replaced the Force-lightning sky of hyperspace.  
  
“Trouble?” Anakin asked, glancing at his sister.  
  
“Maybe. Unplanned revert,” she replied, flcking her hair back behind one ear, giving a professional sideways glance as her brother dropped into the co-pilot’s position, wearing only boxer shorts. She added a more pointed look as Tahiri leaned on the back of his seat, bare feet on tip-toes, long legs bare. “Hyperdrive is back online, but the navacomp is going crazy, says none of the local coordinates are corroborating properly. Lowie says the initial problem was definitely navigational, not the engines, but they won’t spin up again without a cooperative computer.”  
  
“So we bypass to the backup?” Anakin said, frowning as he tried to figure out the news. “Code in a rough jump, by hand or wire if necessary. What’s the nearest system?”  
  
Jaina gave him a dark look, shaking her head. Anakin looked confused.  
  
“You’re in the navigator’s chair, dummy,” Tahiri reminded, poking him in the upper arm.  
  
“Oh,” he agreed, shaking his head and grinning a little. “Okay.” He glanced up at her. “Where would you like to have sex next?”  
  
“Not in front of your sister, _tsup_ -boy,” she grinned back, poking him again. Anakin grinned, liking the attention. “You make it really hard to train you sometimes, you know?”  
  
“I know.” They smiled together, eyes scanning the list of planets and systems on the screen. “There?”  
  
“There,” Tahiri nodded, reading off the name where their fingertips had met together on the screen. “Bespin. Close enough, and General Calrissian’s people will take good care of us. Also--” she smirked--”I’ve never had sex on Cloud City yet.”  
  
“You two.” Jaina shook her head. “Okay. Plot me a straight-line jump to the edge of the system, and we go in on sublight on the tricky part, just in case there are any unwanted Yuuzhan Vong or anything?”  
  
“Of course,” Anakin emphasised. “Already done.” He grinned up at Tahiri. She grinned back down.  
  
“Fine.” Jaina sighed as she pushed forward the jump levers. She started to push up out of the chair even before the freighter had gone into lightspeed.  
  
Outside the cockpit, the stars spun and streaked into starlines, and they were gone into hyperspace  
  
Anakin, and Tahiri, looked quizically at his sister. “What’s up?”  
  
“I was going to check on Lowie for a bit,” she shrugged. “I figured you two could use some privacy?”  
  
“We could go back to bed?” Tahiri offered.  
  
“You two can stay here,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t exactly need a bed?”  
  
Anakin sighed as she disappeared down the corridor.  
  
“You know,” Tahiri grinned, swinging round and sitting on his lap. Her hand ran up his bare chest, and she smiled. “She has a point.”

  
***


	2. Artistic Integrity

The freighter raced out from the lightning-storm of hyperspace, leaping suddenly into a tunnel of decelerating starlines, and then, with a growl of engine noise, the reversion into realspace was complete.  
  
As the starfield spun back to normal, Anakin reached forward, pulling back the jump levers to set the hyperdrive to idle, and activating the autopilot to take them into Bespin.  
  
“Time to get up,” he said, shaking Tahiri’s bare shoulder, leaning back with her into the comfort of the chair.  
  
“Hm?” She looked up at him. “Oh.” She gave a frown. “Should I put some clothes on?”  
  
“Up to you. Depends if you want my sister and my Wookiee to see you naked?”  
  
She laughed, hiding a flicker of another reaction, and reached down for his t-shirt. “Your _Wookiee_ has already seen me naked, Anakin Solo,” she said, fondling him pointedly through his underpants.  
  
“True.” He grinned, and wrapped his arms around her, stopping her from shaking the t-shirt any further down than the top of her waist. “C’mere.”  
  
“No.” She kissed him anyway, feather-quick, before slipping out of his lap, and straightening the hem of the t-shirt around her hips. Anakin gave her a glance, and turned back to the flight console, smiling. She watched him, smiling too. “What have we got, hero-boy?”  
  
Anakin’s eyes flickered in a dance, from her, to the stars, to the sensor displays, and back again. “There’s Bespin. Comms are quiet--not a total surprise these days. Not much freighter traffic in-system. Uh-oh....”  
  
“Trouble?”  
  
“Yeah.” He breathed out. “We have an Imperial Star Destroyer parked at Bespin’s L1 point...”  
  
“The _Errant Venture_?” she asked hopefully  
  
“Nope,” he frowned. Even from the long-range sensor telemetry, he could tell it wasn’t Booster Terrik’s outsized pirate ship. “ImpStar Ace, running very pretty power curves and a full screen of TIEs. Definitely military. I didn’t see it there until we swung around...”  
  
“You don’t need to apologize to me, dummy.” Tahiri smiled. “You know none of that means anything to me, right?”  
  
Anakin gave her a lopsided frown. “I lost you at _L1 point_ , didn’t I?”  
  
“I think you lost me at _Star Destroyer_ ,” she said fondly. “Could it be one of ours? New Republic, I mean.”  
  
“I don’t think....” He turned, with an eyebrow raised, and smiled at Jaina as she stepped back into the cockpit. “Oh--hi, sis.”  
  
“Did someone say _Star Destroyer_?” she asked, folding her arms and looking annoyed, as if this was all his fault.  
  
“ _Imperial_ -class,” Anakin nodded, unable to quite stop grinning in response. “Running an Imperial transponder. Wait. The _Chimaera_.”  
  
“Great.” Jaina scowled at him, definitely not amused, and wanting to know what the Imperial command ship was doing on the wrong side of the Galaxy. “Have they spotted us?”  
  
“If they’re paying attention, yeah. We in came straight out of the deep black. Even with a Class Nine hyperdrive, it’s kinda hard to hide a re-entry spike against the cosmic background this far out on the Rim.”  
  
Jaina’s scowl darkened, shadowing her eyes. “But no attempt to contact us yet?”  
  
“It’s only been a couple of minutes....”  
  
Now her eyes widened. “And you’re not worried about a kriffing Imperial cruiser sitting in orbit around Bespin? With its comms silent? Even if that is the _Chimaera_ …”  
  
“Hey,” he protested. “I thought you liked Imperials.”  
  
Jaina tensed, scowling at the grin he was trying to hide. She folded “Jag Fel isn’t an Imperial. He’s a pilot with the Chiss forces.”  
  
Anakin grinned openly. “There’s a difference?”  
  
Jaina pointedly ignored him, and sat down in the right-hand seat beside him, deactivating the autopilot, and taking control. “Lowie, get up here!” she yelled. “Anakin, let me know if they make any hostile moves, and I mean any.”  
  
“They’re on our side these days,” he reminded her. “Relax.”  
  
Tahiri was more on edge than she appeared, too with the deceptively loose poise she slipped into when there was fighting to be done, calm and clean and balanced in the Force, like a blade.  
  
He loved her when she looked like that.  
  
She smiled back. She seemed to love him, too.  
  
Jaina sighed, then glanced up as as Lowie ambled in, asking what was gong on. She gave him a wry, reluctant grin. “Hey, big guy. Anakin’s gone and dropped us into a system full of Imperials, without a working hyperdrive.”  
  
Lowie let him know what he though about that.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Anakin shrugged, and glanced again at the comm board, its lights still showing no sign of incoming signals from the Star Destroyer. _If this lasts much longer, I’ll have to run a diagnostic on the rectenna_...  
  
“Anakin?” Tahiri asked quietly, leaning forward. “You think maybe they haven’t seen us?”  
  
Anakin thought about it, then smiled, and shook his head. “Nah. These are Imperials. It’ll just take a couple of minutes for the sensor tech to inform his pit officer, the pit officer to report to the deck officer, the deck officer to inform the captain....”  
  
Tahiri picked up his line of thought. “Then the captain has to decide what to do, and then the message has to go all the way back down to some communications tech in the other crew pit, right?”  
  
“Gotcha,” Anakin grinned, proud of her in all sorts of ways.  
  
To prove his point, the comm light on Anakin’s console flashed.  
  
“You’d better get that,” Jaina reminded him, a little tartly.  
  
Anakin hid his amusement at her mood, and opened the channel.  
  
“Attention, unidentified freighter.” The voice had a Mid-Rim twang, which sounded odd coming from an Imperial ship. “This is the Imperial Star Destroyer _Chimaera_. Identify yourself and state your business.”  
  
“Uhh,” Anakin frowned. “This is the freighter _Yavin Turtle_, one day out of Varonat for Darlyn Boda. We had a hyperdrive malfunction a few hours back, so we headed towards Bespin for repairs.”  
  
“Copy that, _Yavin Turtle_,” came the answer. “Now proceed inwards to rendezvous in sector L5, and stand by to accept an Imperial boarding party.”  
  
Jaina and Tahiri exchanged glances, frowns. Lowie muted an unhappy sound.  
  
The light on the comm board switched back to white. The Star Destroyer had ended the discussion without even waiting for them to answer.  
  
“Guess we’re getting visitors,” Anakin shrugged, standing up. “Tahiri, you’d better put on some clothes?”  
  
“You sure you don’t want me naked in front of the Imperials, Anakin?” his girlfriend teased, putting her hands to her hemline, as if to pull the t-shirt off.  
  
“Underwear, at least,” he grinned, realizing as he stepped out into the corridor that he was barefoot on the metal deck himself, only wearing boxers.  
  
“I was wondering when you’d notice?” she grinned, nudging him.  
  
As they hurried back into the cargo hold, they found themselves spinning into each other’s arms again, and they ended up with Anakin’s back pressed up against the bulkhead beside the door, and Tahiri pressed close against him.  
  
“This is not the time,” he murmured, liking the way they could snap into comfortable intimacy at a moment’s notice. “We might have an audience....”  
  
“All the more reason,” she teased, wrigging her t-shirt up across her breasts, and stretching her body against him.  
  
“You’re lucky I know you love me when I hold back,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, and holding her gaze.  
  
“Maybe,” she challenged, pulling, and naked against his. “Maybe I want to find out whether I really like it or not.”  
  
Lowie’s voice echoed down the corridor, reminding them that they were on a ship with two other trained Force-sensitives.  
  
“And one of them’s your sister!” Jaina called out after him.  
  
They both sighed.  
  
“We’d better....”  
  
Both their faces hovered between rueful frowns, and flirty grins.  
  
“Yeah.”

  
***


	3. Where Is Everyone?

Anakin quickly pulled on a pair of breeches, then his boots, and when he couldn’t find the t-shirt that should have been sitting in the pile with them, he grabbed his gunbelt, and a white shirt from the closet. Tahiri had opted for a nondescript jumpsuit over an undershirt with strappy shoulders and a high waistline. She still looked incredible in the rumpled khaki coverall, the material somehow showing off her body’s curved athleticism, and with the zip pulled down to her own utility belt, there was a gap visible between the hemline of the undershirt and her waistline, which to Anakin’s eyes was as exciting as any glimpse of cleavage.  
  
“Come on,” she said, and he followed, pulling on the shirt and half-tucking it in behind his gunbelt. “Let’s make sure your sister hasn’t broken your ship yet.”  
  
“I’d have fun fixing it,” he shrugged, following her back to the cockpit. “Hey, sis.”  
  
Jaina flicked her hair behind her ear, glancing round and scowling at them.  
  
“Anakin,” she began, as he dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. “You are not nearly tense enough.”  
  
The Imperial Star Destroyer was visible now, in the night sky between Bespin and the distant crescent shadow of its larger moon.  
  
“They’re supposed to be our allies,” he pointed out, sitting down in the co-pilot’s chair. “You’re too tense.”  
  
“Not the sort of allies we trust,”Jaina countered.  
  
“I know, I know,” Anakin agreed.  
  
Tahiri slipped into his lap, smiling at him. “So. Explain to me some more what all these buttons do?”  
  
“Well,” Anakin said, grinning back at her.  
  
A warble from Fiver interrupted them.  
  
“You’d better get that. Talk me through it?”  
  
“Something with the navacomp. The navigational computer.”  
  
“I know that, dummy.”  
  
“Sorry.” Anakin checked the display. “Good news is, the hyperdrive just started working again. Seems we picked up some telemetry from the BoSS beacon at Bespin, and it fixed...” Fiver warbled another remark, and a couple of figures on the screen flashed red. Anakin frowned. “Some of the chrono sequencing seems out, but we have navigation if we need a quick jump out of here.”  
  
“You want to make a quick run from that thing?” Tahiri asked, nodding at the bows of the Imperial cruiser, huge and in front of them. “Apart from that, you lost me again.”  
  
Jaina said nothing, but clearly, she thought it was a good idea.  
  
Anakin pursed his lips in thought. “Not in this scow, no. We have nothing to hide in our cargo, and mom being the ex-Chief-of-State ought to count for something, even with Imperials. I say we let them send a shuttle over, and then, if they cause trouble, we start using our lightsabers.”  
  
Jaina raised an eyebrow. “You’d take on an ImpStar in this thing?”  
  
“We have four Jedi and one of them’s a Wookiee?” he offered. “What could possibly go wrong?”  
  
“Soon enough know,” Tahiri nodded, as a quartet of TIE Fighters swooped out from the hangar bay underneath the Imperial cruiser’s hull. “We have visitors.”  
  
Jaina frowned. “Great.”  
  
“Bad?” Tahiri asked.  
  
“Bad,” Jaina nodded. “They have the speed to outrun this scow, and the guns to shoot us out of space before we even calculate the jump to lightspeed.”  
  
“Freighter _Yavin Turtle_,” the Imperial voice crackled on the intercomm. “Maintain your current heading until ordered, and cooperate with all flight instructions.”  
  
“Copy that, _Chimaera_ ,” Anakin sighed. “ _Yavin Turtle_, out.” But the channel was already silent.  
  
“They just killed the comm without even waiting for us to acknowledge,” Jaina sighed. “Again. What do they think this is, the Bastion orbital perimiter?”  
  
“Ask your boyfriend,”  
  
“He is not--!” Jaina fumed.  
  
“No time,” Anakin emphasised, grinning at her. “You want to stay on the stick while say hello to the boarding team?”  
  
“That’s very generous of you, Captain,” she said dryly.  
  
“I just know you’re happier when you’re flying something. Also, you’re the professional combat pilot around here.”  
  
“And this is not a combat starfighter,” she said, pulling on the headphones, refusing to relax.  
  
“Anything I can do?” Tahiri asked.  
  
Jaina grinned a moment. “Look cute. Keep my brother calm.”  
  
“Hey!” Anakin objected. “I thought you wanted me to be tense?!”  
  
“Keep calm,” Tahiri insisted, looking cute.

  
***


	4. Take Them On

Anakin sighed at Tahiri. “You’re not exactly keeping me calm, you know?”  
  
“I thought you loved being the self-controlled one,” she teased.  
  
“I do it for you?” he offered, smiling.  
  
But there was an Imperial Star Destroyer approaching fast, its arrowhead bows bearing down on their freighter. It was close enough that Anakin could see the guns now.  
  
They stayed silent as the TIEs zoomed up and dropped into an escort formation around the freighter.  
  
Anakin had a bad feeling that they weren’t just going to ride scattergun while the _Chimaera_ sent over a shuttle with an inspection party.  
  
“Attention, freighter _Yavin Turtle_,” the comm-voice with the Mid-Rim accent repeated. “Power down and stand by to come in on our tractor beam.”  
  
“Great,” Jaina sighed, flipping switches to shunt power away from the sublight drives. “So much for the boarding committee.”  
  
The hull shook around them as the beam locked on. The flanking TIEs spun away almost immediately, their pilots apparently satisfied that the freighter was secure - or paranoid about whatever real threat had brought them to Bespin in the first place.  
  
“It’s okay,” Anakin breathed. “The worst thing we’re carrying is lightsabers.”  
  
“That doesn’t always stop these guys,” Jaina reminded him.  
  
“Hey,” Anakin protested. “This is us we’re talking about.”  
  
“And you don’t have a back-up plan?” This from Tahiri, looking curious.  
  
“And that’s a Star Destroyer,” Jaina emphasized.  
  
He squinted at the Imperial cruiser. “Take out the starboard tractor beam with the quad lasers, and make a spin-break out across that side of their bows for the outer system.”  
  
“That easy, huh?” Jaina shook her head. “I guess I’d better stick up here in case they can’t bring this crate into their hold straight,” she said, flicking her hair back again. “You two want to get back there and provide the welcoming committee?”  
  
“Euphemistic or literal?” Anakin asked, eyeing the Star Destroyer.  
  
Jaina shrugged. “It’s your ship. Why should I care if you mess it up, if you deal with this mess?”  
  
Tahiri caught his eye, and grinned. She was clearly liking the idea of fighting back.  
  
“We could use a Wookiee.” He shook Lowie by the shoulder. “Come on, big guy. Some people might need disarmed.”  
  
With a long note of enthusiasm, offset by intermingled apology to Jaina, the Wookiee stood up, ducked under the hatch, and followed them down the corridor.  
  
“We’re really going to beat up the Imperials?” Tahiri asked, swaggering slightly now.  
  
“Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara once gave an entire Star Destroyer the run-around,” Anakin shrugged. “And you know about Mom and Dad on the Death Star?”  
  
Tahiri grinned at him. “I like it when you think big, hero-boy.”  
  
“Let’s just try and not do too much permanent damage?” Anakin asked. “But follow my lead.”  
  
Lowie laughed at that, for some reason. Tahiri seemed amused too.  
  
“If they aren’t dumb, we’ll be nice to them?”  
  
“Something like that, yeah.”

  
***


	5. Star Destroyer

A thunk ran through the hull, as the freighter touched down on the hangar deck, and they arrived at the airlock, to see the hatch already rolling open, and a young man in the khaki of an Imperial officer standing at the bottom of the ramp, followed by a pair of stormtroopers, and a couple of jumpsuit-clad technicians hauling a sensor pallet.  
  
“Anakin Solo,” Anakin said, offering a cocky smile. “Captain of the _Yavin Turtle_.”  
  
Tahiri suppressed a laugh. Lowie made a noise that an Imperial wouldn't recognize as one.  
  
“Lieutenant Lannier,” the Imperial replied, apparently impervious to Anakin's name as well as his sense of humour. “Imperial Navy.” He gave a look around, and gave Tahiri and Lowie a proprietorial leer. “Are you his crew?”  
  
“Girlfriend,” Tahiri smiled proudly. “Among other things.”  
  
“Wookiee,” Anakin translated, as Lowie added something insulting in Shyriiwook.  
  
“I can see that,” the Imperial clipped, betraying an Expansion Region accent beneath his Core Worlds affectation. “Do these two have their identification in order?” He sneered down at Tahiri - an expression that Anakin realised was pretty much the same whether you were a real High Coruscanti, or a jacked-up kid from Woostri. “I’d hate to have to detain the blonde.”  
  
Tahiri didn’t even blink.  
  
“Look, Lieutenant,” she said, with a smile that was far more dangerous than it seemed. She made a gesture to hold his attention. “You don’t need to worry about that. Just tell your men to search the ship.”  
  
She smiled, and he nodded.  
  
“We don’t need to worry about that,” the officer decided. “Men, search their ship.”  
  
The techs looked confused, but they obeyed, opening the pallet and starting to set up. The stormtroopers hid their disdain for their subaltern behind their body-language, but they were even better-disciplined than the techs.  
  
Anakin and Tahiri watched them unpack - his hand on his blaster, her arms folded across her chest.  
  
“Been practicing your mind-tricks?” he whispered.  
  
She grinned, and nudged him with her elbow. “Of course. You’re great experimenting material.” She smiled up at him. “Don’t worry about it.”  
  
He laughed, a little nervous, but not much. “I won’t.” He hoped she was joking, but it turned out it didn’t bother him if she really was messing with his head.  
  
“Just so long as you don’t have anything illegal to hide,” she smirked at him.  
  
“What are you two...?” the officer began, then paused, as the sound of female footsteps came down the corridor, followed by a brunette with a dark nerfhide jacket over a red combat flightsuit, a big pistol at her hip.  
  
“Have I missed anything?” Jaina asked, sauntering to a stop, and grinning like she didn't want to miss the fun.  
  
Lieutenant Lannier's eyes widened. "And this is your--?"  
  
Anakin didn’t miss a beat. “Sister.”

  
***


	6. So Much for Tact

The Imperial looked at Jaina, appraising her. “Interesting flight suit you have there, ah, ma’am. You military, by any chance?”  
  
“I'm on extended leave from my unit,” she answered, with a little frown. Jaina's extended furlough from Rogue Squadron was still something of a sore point with her.

But Lannier showed no indication that he recognized the implied warning. Instead of being annoyed or intimidated, he seemed to gain in confidence. “Yeah?” There was definite contempt in his tone now, but he seemed more puzzled than aggressive - maybe even a little amused. “So, what do you fly, exactly?”

Anakin tensed, glancing urgently at his sister to try to communicate an unspoken warning.

Jaina had been taken aback by Lannier's first question, but with a pilot’s speed, she had reacted to the challenge. Then he'd shrugged off her response, and she was annoyed by the way he'd continued with the same Imperial attitude. Anakin had a bad feeling that she was about to make some sort of mistake.  
  
Tahiri must have sensed the danger too, as she stepped forward quickly, catching the soldier’s attention. “Hey, Lieutenant...?” she began.  
  
The Lieutenant’s gaze flickered to her, then back to Jaina.

“That would be none of your business,” she said to him.

_Uh-oh_. Like a TIE Fighter breaking free of a tractor beam lock, the Imperial had slipped out from under Tahiri's mind-trick.  
  
Then he smiled.  
  
“But you’re some kind of starfighter pilot, right?”  
  
Jaina allowed herself a smug grin. “Yeah. Pretty good. I’ve simmed against your TIE Pilots pretty well, too.”  
  
“Good,” the officer said, and gestured to his troopers - a funny gesture, thumbs and finger crooked in a specific command. “That means we can conscript you for the Imperial Starfighter Corps.”  
  
Jaina blinked. “What!”  
  
“Hey, hang on,” Anakin interjected. “She’s a citizen--”  
  
The stormtroopers had their BlasTechs levelled now. And they didn't respond well to mind tricks. “The Imperial Navy asserts the right to conscript all speed-pilots of proven capability. There is a Galactic conflict going on, Captain Solo, and your sister just got drafted. Don’t get in our way.”  
  
Anakin realised he had his hand on the grip of his gun. He kept it there, staring down the jerk in uniform.  
  
“You don’t have to do this,” Tahiri tried. But the Imperial still wasn’t listening.  
  
Lowie added the most threatening noise Anakin had ever heard from him.  
  
Anakin flicked the safety on his blaster onto stun -- then frowned more darkly, as a new thought struck him. He glanced for just a heartbeat back to the stormtroopers’ BlasTechs, confirming that their setting switches were on kill.  
  
Great.  
  
He looked back at Lannier’s eyes, hoping he looked the right sort of angry.  
  
The problem wasn’t that the Imperials had their guns set for casual murder. Four Jedi wouldn’t really have a problem handling two stormtroopers and a jerk with a service-pistol, but when they were deflecting back kill-shots from the dumb guys, someone might get hurt, and he really wasn’t sure he wanted to cut down Lieutenant Lannier in cold blood in the crossfire before he grew up and learned to not be an idiot.  
  
And his subordinates really didn’t deserve his stupidity to get them shot.  
  
_Hell of a time to get a conscience_ , he thought.  
  
“It’s okay,” Jaina sighed, with a gesture for the three of them to relax. “Lieutenant...?”  
  
“Lieutenant Lannier, conscript. But you can call me _sir_.”  
  
Jaina gave him a fake smile. “You’re making a big mistake here, Lieutenant.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Really.”  
  
The Imperial shrugged blankly. “I don’t care if you’re the long-lost daughter of the emperor himself, conscript. You’re coming with me.”  
  
He gestured with his pistol.  
  
Jaina sighed, tense, and the Stormtroopers slipped into the funny mood that meant they were performing eyeblink targeting with their HUDs.  
  
Even at this close range, Anakin reckoned he could deflect the bolts in time. He stepped forward, deliberately drawing their shots towards him.  
  
“Listen,” Tahiri tried. She was at his shoulder, combat-ready.  
  
If they moved now, none of the Imperials would survive more than about three seconds. Anakin knew it. They all did.  
  
“You really think you can take on the Empire?” Lannier scoffed.  
  
“Maybe we just don’t want to hurt you,” Jaina answered, with a twist of a smile. She gestured for the rest of them to stand down.  
  
Anakin responded with a frown, and Tahiri followed his lead. Lowie didn’t sound pleased.  
  
“Easy,” Jaina said. “If we just stand here, some idiot might get shot.” She jerked her head at Lannier. “Hapspir. Barini. Corbolan. Triaxis. I assume you recognise at least the first part of what I just said, Lieutenant?”

Lannier blinked, and seemed to be having difficulty picking up his jaw. Anakin just grinned.

The code had been Aunt Mara’s personal recognition sequence, when she’d been Palpatine’s personal assassin rather than Luke Skywalker’s wife—a magic password which had literally opened every door in the Empire. The trigger phrase still worked on current Imperial computer systems, and Mara had long suspected that the same would also be true of Imperial personnel, which was part of why she’d shared the override with Anakin and Jaina.

Anakin had never been entirely sure about whether he could pass himself off as a high-level Imperial agent, but Mara had said it always worked when she'd been a teenager with a lighsaber, and evidently, the trick worked for Jaina as well.

“Uh,” Lieutenant Lancock said, stiffening awkwardly to attention. “Ma’am.”

“Is the Grand Admiral on board?” Jaina asked, with a smirk.

“Ah, that may be classified, ma’am.”

“That’s a yes, then. I think you should pass my full recognition code up to the bridge. Hapspir. Barini. Corbolan. Triaxis. You got that.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Lancock said, and at Jaina's swivel gesture, he turned and strutting down the ramp with what dignity he could muster.  
  
“You sure about this?” Anakin asked.  
  
Jaina nodded. “Short cut to the bridge, where even if I don't get a personal audience with the Grand Admiral, I can talk to someone smarter than this guy. If I haven’t sorted this out by the time they finish your search, get to Bespin. Get onto the holonet as soon as possible.” She gave him a meaningful look. “If you can be as quick as you were when you landed on Yag’Duhl, I’ll be happy. Comm mom and dad. Fel. Get everyone on our case.” She glared at the Imperial, who was talking to another officer half-way across the hangar deck. “It’ll be a lot more fun that way.”  
  
Anakin smiled, just a little. “You’re sure about this?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah.” A nasty edge had suddenly appeared in Jaina’s aura, dark and dangerous and ruthless. She didn't just want to get the _Turtle_ released and find out why _Chimaera_ was at Bespin -- she wanted to make Lannier suffer. “You okay, Little Brother?”  
  
“I just hadn’t figured having to fight with my sister over this.” _May the Force be with you_ , he almost said, but something made him hold his tongue. “Good luck.”  
  
“Thanks,” she smiled, and the four of them embraced quickly. “You two keep an eye on my brother, okay? Don’t let him do anything dumb.”  
  
“If you come this way, ma’am,” Lannier said, reappearing at the foot of the ramp. “Welcome aboard the _Chimaera_.”  
  
“Thanks,” Jaina shot black. “I don’t plan on staying long.”  
  
Lowie gave a mournful song, as Jaina disappeared from view. There were still the two techs with the scanning set, and a stormtrooper at the bottom of the ramp.  
  
Anakin silently eyed up the options. “Easy, big guy. We wait, and see if they play smart.”  
  
“So, what do we do now?” Tahiri asked.  
  
“Hope she gets this sorted out fast,” Anakin said. “And that the Grand Admiral doesn’t decide to conscript her anyway. If not, get to Bespin. See if Uncle Lando’s people can help.” He paused, and glanced around to make sure the stormtroopers were out of range, lowering his voice. “But first, Lowie here sees if he can contact Bespin by comms, or failing that, he slices the Star Destroyer’s own hypercomm transceiver, and we bounce a signal back to New Republic space.”  
  
Tahiri grinned. Lowie made a noise that sounded a lot less moody than anything else he’d said that day.  
  
Anakin nodded, pressing his smile into a firm expression. “Yeah. Get a message to mom and dad. Or Uncle Luke.” He paused. “Or Borsk Fey’lya.”  
  
Tahiri looked at him. “That bad, huh?”  
  
“Yeah.” Anakin nodded. But Jaina was disappearing deeper into the armoured corridors of the Empire, and while he was pretty sure she thought she had the situation under control, there was a niggling feeling he couldn’t quite identify, like he’d felt when Jacen and Raynar had tried to use a skifter to cheat at cards. _Maybe worse_...

  
***


	7. Emotional Hostages

Anakin was prowling in the corridor just inside the airlock hatch, occasionally glancing out across the hangar bay, to where the Imperial officer was waiting. From time to time, Lieutenant Lannier glanced back in the direction of the _Yavin Turtle_, but he was mostly just polishing the shiny deck with the soles of his jackboots, occasionally conferring with the two stormtroopers he’d summoned as a backing group.

The scanning team had finished a while back--maybe twenty minutes--and given the lack of stormtrooper squads piling into the hangar, Anakin figured that they hadn’t found any way to incriminate them for smuggling or other imagined crimes.

But the fact that Lieutenant Lannier hadn’t given them the all-clear, and the fact that Jaina hadn’t come back with the severed heads of the command crew, made him think that something, somewhere, was badly wrong.

Jaina’s recognition code would only hold good until she revealed who she really was, or ran into someone who wasn’t convinced that she was who she was pretending to be, and while he hadn’t picked up any indication she’d reached that point yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was already encircled by bad guys, and about to have a pair of blast doors—real or metaphorical—slam shut in front of her face.

The attempt to slice into the Star Destroyer’s hypercomm wasn’t going well, either. He could hear Lowie and Fiver in the cockpit, exchanging blatts of droidspeak and growls of Wookiee technical dialects in a complex, stressed exchange that almost sounded like an argument.

As far as he could follow, the main problem was that the the Imperial ship's main router was only coded to Imperial networks, not helped by the fact that the _Chimaera_ ’s comms software was painfully obsolete by New Republic standards. It wasn’t that it was difficult-–just that it was slow.

“You’re cute when you’re all tense and aggressive,” Tahiri smiled, leaning on the curve of the bulkhead, and watching him with a hungry little grin.

Anakin found a grin in answer. “Thanks. You’re pretty cute, too.”

She laughed. “Thanks.” Then she walked closer, and poked him. “Relax, captain-boy. Jaina will get this sorted out. She’s probably talking quietly with Admiral Pellaeon right now, and sorting all this out... or at least having every officer aboard this ship who outranks her demoted to lieutenant.”

“Yeah.” Anakin glanced across the hangar bay again, frowning. The idea was pleasant enough, but he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. "Come on, let's go and see what they're up to in the cockpit?"

"They're having trouble with the comm?" she asked, falling into step beside him with a bounce.

“We need to figure out a better way to contact Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke,” he nodded, leading the way towards the flight deck. “Maybe you should make us some of those Yuuzhan Vong comm pods.” He thought for the word. “Villips?”

"If I do, I'll start with an ol-villip for your restraining bolt," she laughed.

Anakin gave her a grin, and rubbed the little yorik-coral nub at the back of his neck, a souvenir from their time in Yuuzhan Vong captivity on Yavin 4. "Should I like that idea as much as I do?" Then they were ducking into the cockpit, where an exasperated Lowie was shouting at a defiantly surly Fiver, and both asked Anakin to agree with them. “Tell me you have some good news,” he asked. “How hard is it to find the HoloNet?”

Lowie answered with a growl.

“What do you mean, it isn’t there?”

Fiver agreed with the Wookiee.

Anakin sighed. “Great.”

“Trouble?” Tahiri smiled.

“They say they can’t find the HoloNet.” Shaking his head, he dropped into the co-pilot’s seat.

Tahiri leaned over his shoulder, grinning at his words, watching as he scanned the screen. “Can you fix it?”

Anakin sighed, and shook his head again. “Nothing but Imperial military channels, all coded. Great.”

Lowie asked a question. Anakin thought a moment, then looked at him, and then at Tahiri.

“Keep trying,” he told the Wookiee. “The HoloNet can’t just disappear. Try a bounce off a BoSS node, or something.”

“You have a plan,” Tahiri noted, smiling fondly. “Don't you?”

“Maybe,” Anakin nodded, glancing out of the side viewports of the canopy. Another Imperial officer had shown up - slightly shorter than Lieutenant Lannier, lower-ranking; Lannier conferred with him for a few moments, then dismissed the boy, who gave a prompt nod, and marched away.

Lannier seemed annoyed, as he turned his gaze towards the _Yavin Turtle_. Then he gestured to the stormtroopers, and the three Imperials started towards the ship. Even at this distance, Anakin could see the look of spite on the strutting officer’s face.

You didn’t need to be a Jedi for that.

“I have a real bad feeling about this,” Tahiri sighed, giving him a worried look.

"We'd better go and see what they want," he agreed, swinging back out of the seat, and starting down the corridor again.

  
***


	8. Defending Your Freedom

They reached the airlock just as Lieutenant Lannier and his troopers got to the bottom of the boarding rank.

"Boy is he in a bad mood," Tahiri whispered.

Anakin gave her a reassuring glance, then stared hard at Lannier, as he strode half-way up the ramp. "Yes, Lieutenant?"  
  
“Captain Solo,” he announced, trying to look smug. “I’m going to have to ask you to hand over your crew for questioning. And since I don’t speak Wookiee, I’ll have to start with the cute blonde. I’m sure she knows how to be cooperative.”  
  
Anakin blinked, and gripped his pistol’s hilt. Tahiri was deadly now, close at his side and eager for the signal to unleash herself at the Imperials.

But through the Force, they both knew that the moment wasn’t right.

“You’re lying,” Anakin growled, staring hard at Lannier.  
  
“I’m an Imperial officer,” Lannier answered smugly. “I’m doing my duty.”  
  
Anakin sighed. It would be too easy to just shoot the kriffer.

“But you have no actual orders to conduct interrogations of my crew, right?”

Lannier hesitated at that, surprised that his authority had been countermanded. “I have every right to insist that you obey Imperial authority!”

In fact, the Imperial had no idea what he was doing - a fact which both young Jedi had seen clearly in the Force as soon as his confusion made him lose his mental focus. Humiliated by Jaina's use of the recognition code and the delay in new orders from the bridge, he was trying to restore his self-image by throwing his weight around, marching up to the _Turtle_ with an itchy trigger finger and his stormtroopers' blasters still set for maximum power.

Anakin and Tahiri exchanged glances, trying not to let him see how easily they could read him.

In a way, Anakin wouldn’t have objected to a straight fight like that - stun blasts were always harder to deflect or dissipate; but playing shockball with kill-shots in a hangar full of idiots meant that people were going to get hit.

“Captain, if you don’t cooperate, I will be forced... I will be compelled to force my way aboard your ship.”

“Fine.”  
  
He felt a certain grim satisfaction as he slammed his palm against the lock pad beside the door.  
  
“So, what now?” Tahiri asked, as the hatch slammed down, and they were rewarded with a momentary glimpse of the Imperial Lieutenant’s jackboots tripping backwards in an instinctive reaction to avoid the fast-moving metal.  
  
Anakin looked at her, beautiful and perfect.

“I have a plan, like I said.” Anakin pulled off his t-shirt. “It involves us taking off our clothes, too.”

Tahiri grinned at him. “All your best plans do.”

  
***


	9. How Do They See Anyway? (Stormtrooper's Dilemma)

Anakin glanced out of the maintenance hatch beneath the _Yavin Turtle_ ’s hull, confirming that no-one was nearby, and drawing the Force around himself to make himself seem unobtrusive - then dropped to the hangar deck, naked except for his boxer shorts. Tahiri followed, bare-legged and blonde in her t-shirt.  
  
They crouched close against the cable-wrapped pistons of the landing leg, bodies poised in a shared space, and exchanged glances, admiring each other: eyes bright, bodies stripped down for a fight, athletic and muscular and perfect together.  
  
They glanced around the hangar, and looked at each other again.  
  
They had timed it perfectly. All the Imperials were looking the wrong way.  
  
An exchange of nods was all the agreement that they needed, and they darted across the flight deck, then slipped through an open hatchway into an empty corridor.  
  
They swapped grins.  
  
“Made it,” Anakin breathed.  
  
“You sure we don’t need our lightsabers for this?” Tahiri whispered.  
  
Anakin nodded. “Of course. I have you. Someone’s coming.”  
  
They pressed against the bulkhead, concealed behind a support stanchion. Two sets of footsteps, both male, probably booted.  
  
They grinned, held hands.  
  
“... I know we’re not the most glamorous section of the crew,” a privileged-sounding voice was saying. “But we need to keep our standards up. Everything depends on us.”  
  
Anakin chanced a glance around the stanchion, and saw an officer in a khaki uniform, accompanied by a technician in a grey coverall and black cap. The officer was close to his own height and build, though he had the look of a man who lived mostly in the gym; the tech was shorter, thinner.  
  
“Yes sir,” the tech agreed. “What would they do without us?”  
  
Anakin smiled, and put his hand to his girlfriend’s shoulder.  
  
Tahiri leaned around him, looking out – then smiled herself, slipped forward half a pace, and stepped out of their hiding place.  
  
“Uh, hi?” she asked the two Imperials, grinning brightly. “I think I’m a bit lost….”  
  
Anakin spun out from cover before the Imperials even had the time to think, attacking with Jedi speed – with the heel of his right hand slamming hard into the technician’s jaw.  
  
“What the—?!” The officer was answered by Tahiri’s own knock-out move, a perfect counterpoise to Anakin’s.  
  
She looked fantastic, but more than that, he felt as if they’d moved as one.  
  
The two Imperials had landed half on top of each other, out cold.  
  
“Now we get their uniforms,” Anakin nodded, dusting down his hands, and glancing around to make sure that there were going to be no interruptions. He looked down at the two unconscious Imperials. “You’d probably fit better in the tech’s coverall, I’m afraid....”  
  
Tahiri smirked at him, as she pulled off his t-shirt, struck a pose in her underwear, and tugged the black Imperial peaked cap onto her head.  
  
“Next time we do this, we knock out a female officer,” she asked him. “Okay?”


	10. The New Order

A young Imperial lieutenant marched through the angular corridors of the Star Destroyer _Chimaera_ , broad-shouldered in a khaki uniform with a pistol at his hip, accompanied by a slender female technician with blonde hair pulled back beneath her black cap, and a body whose beauty even the badly-fitting grey jumpsuit didn't hide – and by an astromech droid with a black dome and an unusual triangular rader eye.

Fiver had joined them once they'd tied up the original wearers of their stolen uniforms and put them in a storage locker – Tahiri had done the tying, Anakin had done the locking-up. The astromech had reported that Lowie still hadn't managed to make comm contact with anyone, and the Wookiee was slicing his way through the Imperial files to try and locate a direct comm code for Admiral Pellaeon or _Chimaera_ 's bridge.

That would have to do. Right now, Anakin was certain Jaina was in trouble. Fiver had jacked himself into a computer port, and after a little conversation with the Star Destroyer's computers, the astromech had located her in a turbolift heading for the main bridge.

The trouble was that catching up with her wasn't going to be easy.

On a ship the size of _Chimaera_ , the normal route from the hangar complex in the lower part of the main hull to the bridge levels on the upper decks of the command tower was by turbolift, but Fiver had confirmed Anakin's suspicion that there were heavy security protocols in place. The astro-droid didn't feel confident about overriding the computer security, and Anakin didn't want to risk triggering alarms by trying to use the code-cylinder key in the shoulder pocket of his stolen uniform - he doubted that an officer whose main job was flushing the latrines had automatic access to the command levels, and he didn't much feel like experimenting in the hope that he was wrong.

That meant a lot of walking, through busy corridors in which the whole crew of forty thousand Imperials seemed to be going about their business – squads of stormtroopers, TIE Pilots in flight gear, officers in black or khaki, technicians in their grey coveralls, and wide-helmet Navy Troopers. And once they'd made their way half-a-mile aft to the rear of the ship where the main engines were, they'd have to climb another half-mile up, using a dizzying number of stairs, and use mind-tricks to bluff past any guards blocking their way.

That meant at least half an hour until they caught up with Jaina, maybe more. And that didn't improve Anakin Solo's mood at all.

True, the dangerous irritation they'd sensed from Jaina earlier had subsided, replaced by a quiet mood of anticipation and curiosity, even eagerness, but the sense of relaxation from her clashed with the wider sense of danger he was feeling in the Force - her attitude seemed all wrong for the situation she was about to get herself into, like she had lowered her guard and was walking into a trap.

And that really spoiled his mood.

"You're cute when you're intense, sir," Tahiri teased.

Anakin shot her a sideways glance, but he couldn't resist a smile in answer. "Thanks, trooper," he grinned back.

That _did_ improve his mood.

"So, what do we do now, sir?" she asked.

Anakin frowned. "Find a conference room with holocomm access," he suggested. "That way we can keep track on what Jaina's saying to Pellaeon, and maybe send a message off this scow."

Fiver warbled that he had already located the nearest comm room, and scooted ahead of them, swerving and then pivoting to disappear down a side corridor.

"Lead the way," Anakin grinned. This was starting to feel like he was getting back on track, and he could sense a matching enthusiasm from Tahiri as they swapped smiles. "With me, trooper."

"I knew we could count on you, sir."


	11. Just Another Art Form

Mid-level briefing rooms aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer were apparently set up for easy-access holocomm conferencing. They didn't have the same electronic bulkheads as the uplink nodes they'd been able to access from the hangar deck, or the same sort of physical security perimeter as the command tower. Armed with Aunt Mara's override code, Fiver seemed to think he could access the HoloNet in about five minutes through one of the _Chimaera_ 's command-ship nodes, and he'd brought up a live relay from one of the command-tower turbolifts on the big projector in the centre of the table, so that Anakin and Tahiri could watch Jaina heading to the bridge, now chaperoned by a trim, black-uniformed Imperial lieutenant.

"So we just keep an eye on things from here," Tahiri asked, leaning against the bulkhead, and giving Anakin a glance.

"Mhm," Anakin nodded, as the view switched to show a different image. "Fiver, can you bring up an audio track?"

Jaina stepped out of the turbolift and onto the bridge of the Star Destroyer. She kept her back straight and her head high, moving with the military swagger of an X-wing pilot - but even on the holoscreen, Anakin could see that her eyes were dancing as she took in all the details.

Anakin knew that his sister had always had a secret admiration for the Empire. When she was younger, she had always wanted to be a TIE pilot, dogfighting against Rebels in their X-wings. She had been awed to meet Grand Admiral Pellaeon at Ithor, and she liked Jag Fel precisely because of his old-fashioned Imperial attitude, ruthless and well-trained and dangerously confident. She'd had a crush on his father for _years_.

They'd both been on the bridge of an _Imperial_ -class ship before - but that had been the _Errant Venture_ , half pirate-ship and half tourist-trap, a prize of war with ancient carbon scoring on the bulkheads, brightened by gaudy red trim, with retrofitted computer stations on the quarterdeck, and a mismatched crew of mercenaries and aftermarket droids. The command deck of the _Chimaera_ was different. The lights were immaculately bright, every surface was polished, and the effect of order was sustained by the silent and precise behaviour of the personnel, and the clear geometry of the schematics on the display screens.

It was an imposing space enclosed by a curving sweep of viewports which looked out across the night sky of the Empire, with neatly-uniformed officers in command, and a central walkway thrust forward down the middle, above two flanking crew pits where well-trained technicians were stationed at their computer consoles. The droids and interfaces looked basic and a little old-fashioned, a reminder that the _Chimaera_ was an older ship and that the modern Empire didn't have anything like the same industrial and economic resources for refits and upgrades as the New Republic - but everything was in good condition, gleaming and well-maintained, and all the personnel looked smart and confident.

"Wait here, please, ma'am," the Lieutenant who was escorting Jaina said, sounding politely deferential. Jaina answered with a nod and a smile, evidently enjoying being taken for a high-level Imperial agent.

Anakin watched as the Lieutenant walked forward to report, heading to the throne-like command chair which identified _Chimaera_ as the Empire's flagship. He sensed a flicker of a frown from Jaina, something he didn't understand yet.

There was an ysalamir draped acoss the high back of the command chair - a lazy-looking alien creature that looked a little like a furry scarf, enclosing the seat in its bubble of invisibility in the Force, and shielding the man who sat there from Jedi scrutiny, a precaution that still made sense for the Empire, even after a decade of peace with the Order and the New Republic. The man was shielded from more mundane observation by the way the chair was turned away from the rest of the bridge, but Anakin could just see the elbow of a uniform sleeve on the armrest, the distinctive white uniform of an Imperial Grand Admiral - and from that hint of posture, he could tell that the man in the chair was leaning back with his hands pressed together in contemplation, looking out at space.

Even in the distant lens of the holo, even with no reading in the Force, Anakin felt like he could sense a definite aura of command around the chair - a combination of physical poise and clever spatial arrangements which created a mood of confidence and detachment, reinforced by the subtle cues of deference and respect from the other officers on the bridge.

But there was something wrong here.

Anakin watched the smart way that the officer who'd been escorting Jaina moved, and the way the Grand Admiral kept his poise as he responded - he turned his head a little to one side and listened quietly, keeping his face in shadow, then spoke a few inaudible words in response.

The young officer nodded, turned away, and came marching back across the deck. Jaina essayed another Imperial salute, and was rewarded by a smart reply.

"The Grand Admiral will see you now."

Jaina followed her forward, drawing glances from the officers down in the crew pits - to their eyes, she was probably a scruffy and ill-mannered interloper in this precise military space, even the casual rhythm of her footsteps must seem like an intrusion. Anakin reminded himself that she was a pilot with Rogue Squadron, with an ace's kill-marks beneath the canopy of her X-wing. _She's a different kind of theat._

Then the chair began to turn, rotating slowly as she approached - and Jaina stopped, as if she had suddenly been caught in a tractor beam. Mentally, the shock which radiated from her in the Force was even worse - it was as if a direct hit had overriden her artificial gravity, and sent her spinning away.

And Anakin could see exactly why.

The man in the command chair was not Grand Admiral Pellaeon.

In fact, Anakin was pretty sure he wasn't even human. Physically, his facial features and his physique seemed completely humanoid, but there was an odd shade to his complexion, masked by the colour-shift of the holo - Anakin was pretty sure that seen face-to-face he would have sky-blue skin that was well beyond the range of what most people thought of as normal; and there was a glow to the eyes with which he was studying Jaina, which would be much less subtle in the flesh - no baseline human had eyes that shone bright red.

"That's—" Tahiri said.

"Emperor's Hand," Grand Admiral Thrawn said with a cool, Imperial smile. "What brings you all the way out here?"

  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And at this point, I've caught up with my buffer of scenes that were ready for prompt posting - I do have a lot of the rest written, but the next few scenes, which will shift to Jaina's POV, are a little scrappy, to put things mildly, so the regular schedule of updates might not be so easy to sustain..._
> 
> _In the mean while, though, a big bold_ **THANK YOU** _to everyone who's been reading this, and an emphatic nod of acknowledgement those of you who've left kudos and replies!!_
> 
> _If you're looking for something else to read with these characters, I can recommend you_ Fragile _by **pregnantpadme** \- I realised I didn't have a copy when I was getting this 'fic ready for posting, and as a result, she's started getting the story back online here: you can find a link in the comments section..._


	12. Cracken Twist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _After the note at the end of the previous chapter, the three chapters which follow were written in some haste, becuase I'd lost the relevant rough draft, and wanted to get them back in shape without slacking the posting schedule too much..._
> 
> _They're probably not the best thing I've written, but they get the 'fic from A to B, or at least from one part of the_ Chimaera _to another_...

_Thrawn?!_

Jaina's eyes went wide in shock. She realised her mouth was open too, so she closed it, and tried to think of something to say.

Grand Admiral Thrawn had been the Empire's greatest military genius - perhaps in terms of actual battles and campaigns Darth Vader or Rom Mohc had been equally successful, but Thrawn fought with an emphasis on elegance in his campaigns and an efficiency in his use of resources that made him seem more _civilised_ , less brutal and destructive. And there was something about his ability to predict his opponents moved that suggested an _understanding_ of his opponents, an appreciation and tolerance that contrasted with the usual Imperial mindset.

At least, that was what the sympathetic biographies said. Jaina had read three of them, as well as devouring more general military histories that discussed his campaigns in depth, with the energy she normally reserved for ryshcate when she was hungry, and opponents in a dogfight sim.

She had to force herself to remember that Thrawn was meant to be one of the bad guys.

She wasn't sure she was doing a very good job of lying to herself about that.

But the history books also said that Thrawn had died two decades earlier, when she'd barely been born. There had always been rumours of his survival, but no solid evidence had ever turned up - Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara had killed a clone copy of the Grand Admiral on a mission in the Unknown Regions a few years earlier, which they reckoned had put paid to any plans to stage-manage a return, and there was nothing to show of his supposed secret fleet except a few TIE Squadrons and Stormtrooper commando units, largely manned by recruits from his own people, the near-human Chiss.

But... there was no question that the Chiss Grand Admiral was sitting in the command chair of the _Chimaera_.

And for some reason, he'd misinterpreted her use of the recogntion code to mean that _she_ was an Emperor's Hand, an agent like Aunt Mara.

 _How do you reply to that?_ she asked herself. There was danger here - a risk that one wrong move would see this unplanned run-in with the Empire turn into a trap.

"I could ask you the same question," she heard herself say. Was that a good answer?

Apparently so. The Grand Admiral smiled slightly, and relaxed imperceptibly.

"My return is, of course, not yet public knowledge," Thrawn conceded, lifting one hand in an abstract gesture. "And there are military reasons why I cannot explain the purpose of our presence in this system."

Jaina nodded in agreement. "Of course." Should she claim _she_ was on a secret mission too?

"If I might hazard some speculation, Emperor's Hand," Thrawn smiled. "Given _your_ own presence in this rather out-of-the-way part of the Galaxy, I would theorise that you have fallen out of contact with the Empire, and are merely travelling as an extra pilot on your brother's cargo ship, pursuing a more-or-less legitimate trading voyage between two local smuggling centers."

"Something like that, yeah," Jaina nodded, a little uneasily. Was she lying to _Grand Admiral Thrawn?_ But it wasn't as if she had any option, and if he was misinterpreting, she wasn't sure she wanted to correct him. Or did he know _exactly_ who she was, and this was some sort of crazy dance he wanted her to play along with? _That might make some sense_...

Jaina's head was spinning. _Trust in the Force, and do what the Grand Admiral wants_. Those seemed like the smart moves, even if the juxtaposition was... weird.

"But your underlying loyalty to the Empire remains. You merely required a commander of sufficient rank to report to..."

Jaina swallowed, nodded sharply. "Of course, Grand Admiral." She supposed her blush was going to sell the moment as an emotional return by a loyal Imperial assassin.

Thrawn steepled his hands, and gave a smile that seemed almost smug. "Well, Emperor's Hand. I would say that your contact with the Empire has been restored. Perhaps I can invite you to remain on board? And your brother's crew, as both he and his partner appear to share at least a little of your own distinctive skill set..."

"That would be... lovely," she said, shaking her head a little. _Kriff_. _How do I get out of this?_ Smile. Just smile. "Thank you, Grand Admiral. We'd be delighted to join you. It's good to be back where we belong."

She had to hide another grimace, as Thrawn gestured for the officer who'd escorted her up to the bridge. "Lieutenant Yage will show you to your new quarters."

She tried to do an Imperial salute. "Thank you, Grand Admiral."

She tried to organize her thoughts as she followed the lieutenant back down the bridge. The way the officers and crew were looking at her had changed, so she answered their expressions with a smile, and tried to look like a proud agent of the Empire.

Apparently Thrawn had no idea who any of them were, and no-one in his bridge crew had corrected him. Were the Solo kids really that unknown in the Empire? Or was she just going crazy?

Stepping off the bridge and into a corridor focused her mind. She knew her way around a Star Destroyer's bridge tower pretty well. She'd helped out with some refit work on Booster Terrik's _Errant Venture_. And she was pretty sure that if the security setup aboard an Imperial command ship was anything like a New Republic carrier, the turbolifts _leaving_ the bridge area were unmonitored, to speed up the 'lift-cars' cycle through the ship, and for the simple reason that anyone _in_ the bridge area ought to have already been cleared to be there.

She waited until there was no-one else in sight, then swept the lieutenant's legs out from under her with a side-kick, and dropped her cold with an elbow and a chop.

And then she simply ran for the nearest turbolift.

  
***


	13. Marg Sabl

Jaina leaned against the curved wall of the turbolift, looking up at the round disk of the ceiling, the rush of her breath and the pounding of her heart competing with the sense of elation she felt as the deck beneath her feet accelerated downwards towards the Star Destroyer's keel.

She took a moment to realise that her pocket comm was buzzing.

 _Anakin?_ she thought, frowning at the animated swish of bubbles on the screen, mimicking the wake of a disappearing underwater leviathan. Was this some kind of trick? No, the Imperials wouldn't know how to replicate her brother's comm code.

But the 'lift was already braking, so she quickly thumbed the comm to mute, and drew her blaster as the doors slid open. She was relieved to find herself facing an empty corridor - she couldn't sense any danger in the Force, but she glanced quickly out to either side, confirming there were no troopers with ysalamiri backpacks wating in an ambush before stepping fully through the doors.

She'd taken the 'lift car straight down to the engineering section. She knew her way around a Star Destroyer's drive shafts and generators from her time aboard the _Errant Venture_ , better than she knew the upper decks, and although the _Chimaera_ had to have a lot more personnel in an engineering shift than Booster's outsize pirate ship, she reckoned they'd all be deployed in control rooms and monitoring stations - the corridors would only be busy during change-of-watch rotations.

Her instinct was to treat this as a commando mission, moving in short, quick rushes from one angle of scant defensive cover to the next, but as soon as she heard the noise her boots made on the deck, she forced herself to shift her pace to imitate a steady Imperial marching step - the tone of her non-regulation heels wasn't quite right, but the familiar rhythm would help mask her passage, merging her obtrusive footsteps into the Empire's regular background noise as much as possible.

The only thing she _really_ had to worry about was running into engineers ducking off-duty to use the 'fresher, and hopefully she could just knock them out with silenced stun-shots before they raised any alarms.

Then her comm danced in her pocket. Anakin intruding again, this time sending her a Jedi mental nudge to pick up the call.

"How are you even calling me on this thing?" she asked, flipping the handset open, and scowling. Sometimes, sharing her Force instincts with a kid brother who was as stubborn as a bantha and knew exactly how to push her buttons could be _really_...

" _Relax_ ," Anakin's voice grinned at her, doing his best impression of their father. "Fiver's giving us secure comms using Aunt Mara's override code. Watched your little interview on the bridge, too. You should hear this."

Thrawn's voice cut off any attempt she might have made to query the wisdom of her brother trying to hijack the Imperial command ship's computer system.

"... _certainly not a real Emperor's Hand_." The Grand Admiral sounded more controlled and commanding than she remembered him being five minutes earlier, more like the voice from old holo-footage. Was that just a trick of the audio pickup, or did he shift his tone like that when he wanted his subordinates to pay attention? " _But not a Rebel infiltrator either. The lack of a rehearsed cover story was too amateurish, the mishandling of the recogition code is not a mistake a professional would make_."

 _Mishandling?!_ She felt a momentary flash of outrage, but pushed it aside as the implications hit her. Did that mean Thrawn had been on to her from the start? _Well, what did I expect? That's why Palpatine made him a Grand Admiral..._

The challenge of sneaking through an Imperial command ship with upwards of thirty thousand crewers and a garrison of ten thousand Stormtroopers was starting to come home to her, as well.

She tuned out of the audio feed from the bridge as Thrawn shifted his attention to a report from one of the _Chimaera_ 's officers, and focused on her own plans.

"See. Important stuff." Anakin's mood almost made her smile. "How long are you going to be?"

"Should be about ten minutes." She paused, and decided to risk another turbolift trip to get up to the right deck. The Imperials didn't seem to have caught up with her escape yet. "Hold on," she added. "You're not aboard the _Turtle_ any more, are you?"

"We stole a couple of Imperial uniforms," Anakin said - neither an apology or a justification, just one of his statement-of-fact shrugs. "Thought you might need rescuing."

"Meet me in the long access corridor just behind the hangar bay," she told him, shaking her head in disbelief. "Where Traders' Alley is aboard the _Venture_. I'm heading up through the engineering section."

"Gotcha," he agreed, which reminded her that they'd always worked well together when they could agree on a basic plan of action.

And in fairness, Anakin's plan of simply blasting out of the capture bay aboard the _Yavin Turtle_ was starting to seem more attractive than she'd have ever credited.

" _So, who was she, sir?_ " another voice asked on the audio relay from the bridge - a voice she vaguely recognized. Jaina frowned, trying to place the speaker. A few weeks' military co-operation during the Ithor campaign had hardly given her an encyclopedic knowledge of the Imperial command ship's officers, but if the voice was one she recognized, she ought to be able to put a name to it.

The arrival of the turbolift distracted her, and by the time she'd keyed for the storage holds at the rear of the hangar deck, where a Star Destroyer kept rarely-needed things like AT-ATs, cargo tugs, and prefabricated Army bases, she was focused on Thrawn's answer.

" _Simply a girl with a particular set of aptitudes, whose path has crossed with one of the Emperor's former agents in the years since_ Endor," the Grand Admiral was saying _. "Certain aspects of her behaviour and body-language lead me to think I might even know the individual in question. This agent evidently passed on some of the Emperor's training to the girl at second-hand, and probably to her brother also, and gave them the recognition code to get them out of tricky situations if they encountered Imperial forces_." Thrawn paused, almost sounding amused. " _But their training seems somewhat incomplete, perhaps interrupted by events - and evidently, their mentor did not regard the detailed working of the Empire's command protocol as a worthwhile subject for instruction_."

Jaina wondered if she should feel so flattered and impressed that Thrawn had figured her out completely in advance. There was the small matter of him apparently not knowing anything about the Jedi, which seemed a little crazy - would his information really be that out of date if he'd just popped out of the Unknown Regions or a cloning cylinder, or were junior personnel subject to insane levels of censorship which forced their commanders to talk in code? Whatever the reason for the bewildering oversights, that just made his analysis of her Jedi training and its limitations even more disturbingly accurate.

 _And he even knows who_ _trained me_ , she realised. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She could imagine how her former Jedi Master would react, though. _Aunt Mara is_ not _going to be_ _impressed_.

The arrival of her turbolift at the right deck gave her something else to think about. She'd chosen what she hoped was a quiet area, but with deck crew, TIE Pilots and Stormtroopers all deployed nearby, this deck was going to be a lot busier than engineering. She'd have to do a lot of sneaking, moving only when the corridor was empty and the Force didn't suggest she was about to walk into trouble.

"Admiral!" a voice called out, sharp and edgy on the speaker.

"They're on to you!" Anakin warned her.

"I noticed," she drawled, breaking into a run. _These are so not the boots for this._ She had no real option now except a flat sprint for the hangar, feeling incongruously grateful to Aunt Mara for passing on the running-in-heels part of her Emperor's Hand training, and checking that the setting on her blaster was switched to heavy stun - she was still hoping that all this was some sort of crazy misunderstanding, so she didn't want to start gunning down stormtroopers quite yet, but the main reason was that Aunt Mara had always said the wide effect-ring was the best setting for corridors full of enemy commandos.

When the diagonal blast-doors of the next hatch up ahead slid open and revealed a squad or two of white-armoured Imperial stormtroopers, she simply dived for the side passage on the left, bringing up her gun to pulse off two quick shots at them, landing on her shoulder then picking up in a roll and sprinting on again, blindly snapping off more stun bolts at anyone pursuing her.

She skidded round the corner into the next corridor - but there were more stormtroopers coming down from the hangar area, too many to stop with pistol stun-bolts, and when she quickly doubled back, hoping that she could slow the pursuit by merging the chase parties into an unwieldy pack and get back across into her original corridor before them, she found her route blocked by a third group - at least three squads this time, led by an officer with a big red shoulder-pad strapped across one side of his white armour.

"There she is! Get her!"

Stun-bolts came at her from all sides, and she felt herself being thrown in all directions at once, spiralling off her feet and no longer sure which way was up. She felt the deck land on top of her, and tumbled sideways into darkness.

 _Kriff_ , she thought, with surprising clarity. But after that, she was simply silence.

  
***


End file.
